


A Very Careful Wish

by OrdinaryBird



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 17:37:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3578121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrdinaryBird/pseuds/OrdinaryBird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Janice Carlsberg is turning nine today, and it's the luckiest thing in the world to have your ninth birthday on a Saturday</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very Careful Wish

Janice was already smiling before she opened her eyes. She was nine today, and it was just the luckiest thing in the world to have your ninth birthday on a Saturday.

She sat up and wiggled to the edge of the bed, then lowered herself in the chair. Down the hall she went, grinning still. The sun was out and it was supposed to be a beautiful day and everyone was coming. She brushed her teeth and washed her face and combed her hair. She looked at her freckled brown face in the mirror, stuck out her tongue at her reflection, then rolled back to her room.

The Very Special Dress was waiting for her. It was hugely fluffy on the bottom and had little bits of sparkle on top. It was a surprise for everyone; her dad took her to the mall and waited patiently on a bench, mumbling softly to himself while she found the one she wanted and paid for it herself. She kept it in the bag and he promised not to look while she was at school. Her dad always kept his promises.

“Nine is a big deal, and about time for a girl to have a few secrets,” he’d said. “Nine years ago, you were the size of a walnut! And now look at you!”

She heard the door open and close while she pulled the dress over her head. The other kids would be coming soon, but that was probably Uncle Cecil arriving. She paused, listening hard. Yep, silence from the living room. That was him, then.

She braided her hair and rearranged the dress floof around her legs. _Ready for birthday!_

“Would you look at this!” her dad announced. “Who let this beautiful young lady into my house when I wasn’t looking?”

She stuck her tongue out again. From her uncle she got a kiss on the forehead and a grin. “Hi Mush, happy birthday.” He’d called her Mush all her life and no one remembered why. She didn’t mind though.

There were other kids from class showing up now, with bags and wrapped gifts. She knew which kids would be there, even though she’d invited everyone. Some of the others just didn’t like her.

“Do they pick on you?” her dad asked once.

She’d shrugged. “They pick on everybody though. Peggy has a big nose and William spends all of recess picking flowers and Megan is a hand. It’s not that bad, though.” She’d looked at him, wrinkling her nose with mischief. “When they get really mean I tell them I’ll run them over.”

Peggy said she would be there today, but William was grounded so he wouldn’t. Some of the other Girl Scouts would make it too, and few kids who’d just show up because her dad made pretty good cake even without wheat flour.

Things were wonderful. She kept watching the adults, because they were just _so_ awkward. They tried to keep the worst of it to themselves, she knew, but there was no hiding that annoyed face her uncle always made, or how her dad would get all nervous. But she had decided not to worry about it today. They were grown-ups. And anyway it was her birthday and there were presents to open and games and cake.

At the table they sang, and then there was the silent moment after when everyone held their breath, waiting for the candles to burn away some of the dangers of the big terrifying world for another year. She made her wish and blew out them out and everyone clapped.

“My golly, just look at you. She’s gotten awful big, hasn’t she? She’ll be taller than us in a year!” Her dad elbowed Uncle Cecil in the ribs.

“Hmm,” he grunted back, under duress. _Duress_ was a good word, she’d learned it in school. Not, like, in a lesson or anything, she just liked to read under her desk when she was bored with what the teacher was saying and had found it that way.

“Looks just like a princess,” her dad went on.

“Why a princess?” Peggy said from the other end of the table around a mouthful of chocolate frosting. “She got her Homemade Rocket Fuel badge before anyone. She could be a rocket scientist.”

“Good point,” Uncle Cecil said. He took the teeniest bite of his cake and kept staring at her dad while he gulped down half a glass of milk to follow it.

“Why not both?” Janice asked. It was her birthday. She felt like she could do anything today.

“Absolutely. Princess Janice the Rocket Scientist,” Uncle Cecil announced, gesturing grandly with his fork.

“All that and more, kiddo,” her dad added, and everyone was laughing and she was so happy to see her dad and her uncle and everyone else smile at the same thing.

 

She took a walk with her uncle when the kids were leaving. He wanted to talk her a little. It was probably about her dad again.

Janice wasn’t stupid. She knew her dad was different, that he said things other people didn’t like. When mom was away, it happened more often, probably because he was lonely and just wanted someone to talk to, but the things he wanted to talk about weren’t safe. 

So sometimes he’d disappear for a weekend and come back, a little dazed, not knowing where he’d been. But he’d be himself after a few days. When she was little she thought it was great fun because she’d get to spend a weekend at her uncle’s, and they’d order pizza and watch a movie and make up card games, and in the morning he’d try to make pancakes or french toast or something. But they always got messed up so they’d go to the diner and eat eggs with toast. And then she got older and noticed how he cleared his throat and looked away when she asked how long her dad would be gone. Then Carlos was around a lot and she liked him because he would cook dinner and they held hands under the table and looked at each other like her mom used to look at her dad.

She’d wanted, before he left, to ask if she should start calling him Uncle Carlos or if that would be weird, but he was away right now and she didn’t want to start another conversation that would just make everyone upset.

People seemed to be sad all the time, and she just wished they could all be as happy as she was, right now, forever. But that wasn’t what she wished on her candles, so it wasn’t going to happen. Everyone knew you had to think very carefully through all aspects of your wishes, just in case something was actually listening. And anyway she’d been saving her wish for a whole year and was not going to waste the opportunity.

“Okay, so listen,” Uncle Cecil said, interrupting her thoughts and the silence of their outing so far. He wasn’t very good at starting things smoothly, not when they were important. It wasn’t like when he was on the radio, reading from papers or notecards or whatever. “Did you learn about layered thoughts in school yet?”

“Huh?”

“You know. How you have, like, overthoughts and underthoughts, like stuff floating on water?”

“Oh, you mean thought stacking!”

He shook his head. “They keep changing the stupid curriculum,” he mumbled. “Anyway. You’re growing up now, and that’s, like, really super important to keep in mind. People are going to start listening. What thoughts you put where.”

“I know.”

“Yeah but listen,” he said, and stopped. She followed him with her eyes as he knelt in front of her. “Listen. The things your dad tells you--you know they’re...not--” his face was getting a little red. He still tried to pretend, when they were alone, that he liked her dad. Sometimes she wondered if he forgot that she listened to the radio too, like everyone else did, and heard the things he said. 

“--not what most people...think.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Anyway. My point is. The things you and your dad talk about, those always need to be underthoughts. Okay? They go on the very bottom layer. Stack. Whatever. You can’t talk about them with other people and you have to be very carefully not to let them be the overthoughts for more than, like, thirty seconds.”

He stared at her for a bit, trying to smile, but his eyes were really scared. “I will,” she whispered.

“It’s really important, okay? You’re my mush, if anything--” he looked away and tried to smile again.

She threw herself forward against him, pressed her face into his shoulder. “I will, I promise,” she said, and she would have said anything to make him stop being so sad, just like she would do when her dad looked at her and said _hold still! Just there, when you smiled like that. Looked like your mom._

 

The sun had set long ago, but she didn’t have any school tomorrow so dad said she could stay up late. He sat next to her on the porch in the creaky old camp chair, pointing out the stars and the patterns and signs.

“Do you think mom’s coming home soon?”

He put a hand over hers without looking towards her. “I know she will. I don’t know when, but she’ll be back.”

And she looked back up to the sky, feeling a little better. Her dad didn’t lie. He might be wrong, but at least they both would believe it. “I miss her.”

“I know. I do too. Look--look over there!” And he was talking about the sky again and gesturing a lot, his voice getting louder and more excited. She wasn’t paying a lot of attention to what he said, because these were the last few hours of her birthday and everything was alright. Dad was here, he hadn’t been taken away again and Tamika Flynn stopped by with some books and a wooden practice sword and it was a cool night and the air smelled good and she’d made a very careful wish that she just knew would come true.

 

Janice was smiling before she opened her eyes. She’d been nine for 24 hours and she could hear noises from the kitchen--someone was crying, but in the happy way grown-ups cry, and someone else was shrieking and she’d made a great wish, the best wish ever.

There was no time to get dressed. She slipped out of bed in her pajamas and rolled down the hallway, calling out to her mother.


End file.
